


Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)

by DreamsOfSleep



Category: New Girl
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, Gen, New Girl Secret Santa 2017, christmas eve eve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-22
Updated: 2017-12-22
Packaged: 2019-02-17 17:54:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13082172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamsOfSleep/pseuds/DreamsOfSleep
Summary: S6 Christmas Eve Eve Fix-it: Nick leaves for Seattle to spend Christmas with Reagan. Schmidt tries to cheer Jess up by organizing The Best Christmas Eve Eve ever in the loft.





	1. Blue Christmas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fuckyesnickandjess](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=fuckyesnickandjess).



Nick leaves to be with Reagan in Seattle four weeks before Christmas and it hits Jess much harder than she expects it to. Her latent feelings for Nick are still there of course, but more than that, she realizes this might be the last chance they all get to spend Christmas in the loft together. 

Schmidt and Cece are moving into their own house. Winston will eventually move out to be with Aly. Nick will go on progressively more and more trips flying around the world with Reagan until he spends more time living out of hotels than ever coming back to the loft. She can feel the fragile threads of all their friendships fraying. It’s natural to lose touch with people as everyone gets older and gets caught up in their own lives, but she wants to hold on to her nearest and dearest friends just a little while longer. 

At least Cece, Schmidt, and Winston all have the benefit of still living in the same city as her. It’s still easy enough to call them up whenever she needs to or for no reason at all just to see them, but Nick is the one that is drifting away from them all. He’s the one that is in danger of fading out of all their lives. It worries her that Nick is able to just forget about them so easily now and leave them all behind for Reagan without a second thought. She wonders if this is the way it’s always going to be now. Nick will get pulled into Reagan’s life filled with infinitely more interesting people and places, until one day he’ll forget about all of those weirdos he used to live with back at the loft and never come home again. Maybe he thinks they don’t need him anymore, that there isn’t a reason for him to keep coming back here. Schmidt has Cece. Winston has Aly. And she…she’s always fine, isn’t she? Jessica Day with her life plan. _But I need you, Nick. I still need you._ She should have told him that at Schmidt and Cece’s wedding, but she hadn’t. The moment had passed when she could have told him that and made him stay, anchoring him permanently into her life, into all of their lives, but she had let him go. 

It had been the right decision because Reagan had made him happy and anything they once felt for each other was supposed to be ancient history, but she didn’t think she fully realized what letting go of him meant. No Nick, even at the holidays. He would become someone who might not even call or send a postcard, the friend who gets downgraded to barely even an acquaintance because he never shows up and when he does, you never feel entirely comfortable around each other, someone who is in your life because you have a faded, tattered history together but someone you can never really know again, both of you with new, secret lives you can never invite the other into. 

She has to prepare herself for the fact that she might always have a Nick-shaped hole in her life where he used to be. 

It’s already happening now. The morning he had to leave to catch his flight, typical Nick oversleeps so he had to rush out the door to make his check-in time (a whole thing since he’s on a no-fly list). He didn’t even say goodbye to her. She at least wanted to have breakfast with him before he left. However, he did manage to leave a cheery Christmas card taped to her door. Penguins in top hats with _'Merry Christmas, Jess! See you in 2017!'_ written in his messy scrawl inside. It’s something at least. She puts it carefully away in her Nick box with her other Nick-knacks hidden in the storage unit. She had really meant to throw everything away after the whole helmet debacle, but she stood there outside the dumpster holding all of those Nick things in her box and she just couldn’t do it. She knew it was messing up her relationship with Sam, but it wasn’t a box of bad memories to her. It was a box of good memories. They were _her_ memories and she had wanted to keep them. She thinks that had really been the beginning of the end for her and Sam, her wanting to hold on to Nick more than she wanted to be honest with Sam, or even herself. Sam had been more right than he knew. 

\---

Her feelings for Nick aside, the future she really wants now is the one where all of them stay in each other’s lives as tightly-knit as they have always been: dropping by each other’s places without having to call, spending all their free time together, maybe even raising their kids together, as unrealistic as that was. But she has to face the fact that the loft had just been this slice of extended adolescence for them, a brief reprieve from making the adult decisions and living the adult lives they hadn't been ready for when they had all first met, and now it was over, that growing up meant outgrowing each other and moving on. Everyone eventually moves on, don’t they? Well, everyone except her, but four out of five isn’t bad for happiness. She tries to convince herself of that, but it's especially rough this time of year. She wants to be her usual sunny, optimistic self, but she's exhausted and worn down from pretending not to be in love with her best friend since the summer. For the first time ever, Jess isn’t in the mood for Christmas.

Christmas is usually her favorite time of year but their loft family is all broken up this year with Nick gone and everyone else preoccupied with growing into their new adult lives, so that put a damper on her usual holiday cheer. At least she managed to break up with Robby at Thanksgiving. She can at least say that’s the one good thing she did this year. It left her even more alone at Christmas, but he deserved better than her lukewarm affection and she did too. She’s a little sad about Robby, but mainly for dragging out their relationship so long even though she knew deep down inside it was never going to work. He was a nice guy, just not for her. She mainly wants to put this year behind her so she can look forward to a brighter 2017. She doesn’t know who she will be then, but she thinks all her friends found what they were looking for so that means Future Jess can too. 

Right now though, she’s caught in the holiday doldrums. If she had been feeling like her usual chipper self, she would have had the whole loft decorated by now and she would have organized Secret Santa like she does every year, but she has the Christmas blues which all the tinsel and eggnog and Christmas caroling in the world can’t dispel so she plans to tell her friends they can cancel Christmas this year. Everyone always complains about all the traditions she makes them do every year anyway so she thinks they’ll be pleased. She pastes a smile on and imagines giving them the gift of a Jessica Day-free Christmas, which is just an ordinary day instead of a magical holiday one, even if there are more Christmas cookies than usual in the kitchen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hat tip to cosmictrap's fic ["The Sex Mug"](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12747692/1/The-Sex-Mug) for adding Jess's Nick box to NG fanfiction canon.


	2. Saving Christmas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AKA The Jew Who Saved Christmas

Schmidt felt guilty and it wasn’t a good feeling.

He felt bad about trying to force Jess and Robby together. He had just gotten so caught up in being happy in his married life that he wanted all his friends to be happy and paired off too, just like he was. But Jess wasn’t happy. She was miserable. A little because of Robby, but mainly because of Nick. _Jess was still madly in love with Nick._ It was a secret Schmidt wished he didn’t know because Nick was dopey in infatuation with Reagan and Schmidt couldn’t tell him. Schmidt wanted Nick to be happy. Nick was his best friend after all, but Jess was too. Schmidt could feel his torn loyalties to both of them. 

Schmidt spent far too much time sitting and staring at his Excel file entitled “Nick’s Life Plan” and wondering what part of the timeline Nick was on. He knew he couldn’t interfere in Nick’s life if Nick was happy. Nick was finally pulling himself together for once in his life and becoming a real honest-to-goodness adult like Schmidt always knew he could be, but no matter how Schmidt rewrote the timeline, he couldn’t see how Reagan fit into it. _It was all wrong._ Reagan was nice and all, but she was only supposed to be temporary. She wasn't supposed to be Nick's Maria. It was always supposed to be him and Cece, Nick and Jess. Sometimes Winston and Furguson, but mainly him and Cece, Nick and Jess, sitting on their back porch and growing old together.

The problem was Nick never came back for Jess. Jess was a loose end for him, but that part of his life didn't seem like something he ever thought about revisiting. Jess was in Nick's life now, but it mainly seemed to be in the past tense. Sure they got along, but their relationship never seemed to recover from the breakup. They were friends of convenience because it would be inconvenient for them not to be, their romance so tangled up with all of their friendships that it was the backdrop to every major event in all of their lives, from him meeting and falling in love with his future wife to Winston adopting his surrogate son Furguson and finding a human woman who would put up with that relationship. Sometimes Schmidt wanted to smush Nick and Jess’s heads together and tell those two crazy kids to figure it out, but he knew it wasn’t that easy. Nick and Jess had to figure out their issues on their own but it was damn hard to sit on his hands and do nothing. He fretted that maybe they never would, that their relationship would always have that question mark over it. _What could have been._ That’s probably why he pushed the idea of Robby as hard as he did. Robby was a good guy that Schmidt thought Jess could move on with so she wouldn't torture herself over Nick anymore. And maybe Jess could have moved on if she and Nick weren’t still living together, but every time she tried to put herself out there, tried to drag herself away from that magnetic hold she and Nick still had on each other, there he was. _It wasn’t over._ Schmidt cursed himself because both he and Nick were the dumbest boys in school for ever believing that it was. 

Schmidt worried that they hadn’t been very good friends to Jess this year. Nick had Reagan. He and Cece got caught up in renovating their house. Winston spent far too much time being Winston and doing Winston things. They had basically left Jess to fend for herself since Nick came back and all but rubbed his new relationship in her face. And now Jess wanted to take the very un-Jessica-Day-like action of canceling Christmas, a sure sign of the apocalypse. And even though he grumbled and complained about all the weird Christmas traditions Jess put them through, those tired Christmas carols and tacky decorations, it just didn’t feel right to skip all of that. It was one of those things you hated right up until the moment you knew it was gone.

So like most things, Schmidt knew it was up to him to save Christmas. They had to do it up big this year to make it up to Jess. He would plan weeks of holiday magic to rival the last five years of Jessica Day Christmases. It would also be a love letter to all their friendships, to all those crazy days they spent together as young, confused adults in the loft still trying to figure things out, before time and distance would inevitably take them to those final days when they would all have to leave and go on to the next phase of their lives. 

===

Initially, Schmidt tries to do it all himself but it is too much even for one very motivated Jew. He recruits Cece and Winston to help him. It’s a good thing they still have the Apartment 4D Activity Slush Fund left over from past years because all that Christmas crap costs far more than anything that tacky has any right to, but he imagines this is good preparation for being an actual dad. He wants his kids to experience both Hanukkah and all the magic of Jessica Day Christmases too. He'd do anything for his family and sometimes love is having to endure your living room looking like Christmas threw up in there and getting bitch-slapped by the holiday season every time you open the door.

\---

He takes them to go buy the perfect tree. _A nice Douglas Fir with soft, green needles like something out of a damn Hallmark movie._ He breathes in the scent of pine needles and reminisces about selling Christmas trees to nice families back in his youth when he was just a big-boned, overeager college student. That was when he discovered his talent for marketing, for uncovering people's truest hidden selves, and it had set him on the path to become the man he is today. Being back on that Christmas tree lot definitely puts him in good holiday spirits. 

They take their tree home and decorate it with their box of ornaments – a mixture of classic red and gold baubles alongside Jess’s homemade ones. They string strands of popcorn and hang candy canes on the branches. Schmidt puts his foot down about tinsel though because that’s a trash decoration that he puts in the garbage where it belongs. They spend three hours trying to untangle last year's Christmas lights before giving up and buying a new set. Jess gets the honor of putting the finishing touch on the tree - their angel Christmas topper. When they're done, they stand back to admire their tree in all its Christmas glory. Schmidt can't help getting "Jingle Bell Rock" stuck in his head for three straight days afterwards.

\---

One weekend, they go up to Big Bear to see real snow. They go sledding down the picturesque hills and build snowmen among the happy families. They get in a snowball fight with some pesky youths and get their asses handed to them, but it's still fun regaling each other with tales of their battle scars later when they're sipping hot chocolate by the fireplace in the ski lounge. 

They go ice skating on the outdoor rink at Santa's Village and Schmidt makes a mental note to call his Ma to thank her for all those lessons, especially since he didn’t fly home this year for Hanukkah. Reggie will always be the favorite, but he thinks it’s nice that his Ma isn’t lonely. She has Susan and Reggie, even if her actual son makes his life in LA now. That’s a good thing because that means his Ma has a full life with enough love to encompass them all. They say you don’t get to pick your family, but Schmidt thinks sometimes you do. If you’re lucky, you get to meet all the important people that are meant to be in your life and they become your family.

\---

In the days leading up to Christmas, they end up baking up a storm for Sadie and Melissa’s cookie exchange. Sitting in their cozy apartment, basking in the smell of vanilla and cinnamon wafting out of the oven and the sound of the Christmas movie marathon streaming in the background, Jess gives him one of her genuine smiles over the sugar cookies they are frosting together. She says their apartment feels like they're being hugged from the inside.

===

Before Schmidt knows it, December 23rd is upon them. He knows this is really the piece de resistance of his whole Christmas plan since Christmas Eve Eve holds a special place in Jess’s heart, ever since that first Christmas they all spent together in the loft. All the guys usually fly home for Christmas to spend it with their respective families, but Jess always insisted on throwing a mini pre-Christmas-Day celebration so they could all celebrate together before they left. She insisted on no presents this year, but Schmidt was able to get her to relent for this year's Secret Santa. Jessica Day always did love surprises and Christmas Eve Eve is a loft tradition so it was only right for it to continue on, even as they were down one grumpy-faced roommate. 

Schmidt thinks about telling Nick. He’s a little bit miffed that Nick left again and hasn’t even texted him back like when he went to New Orleans. He’s trying to give Nick space since he’s in a new relationship and all, but would it kill him to call home once in a while? Schmidt doesn’t know if it’s passive-aggressive or not but he sends Nick an invitation to Secret Santa anyway. Schmidt doesn't expect Nick to respond back, but he's still kind of disappointed when Nick doesn’t. Then the Northwest gets slammed with a blizzard, which pretty much destroys any hope he has of a spontaneous, spur-of-the-moment Nick appearance, but Schmidt still finds himself checking his messages for the millionth time, even when he knows it will come up empty. He sighs to himself. He goes back to icing gingerbread men and planning his Secret Santa gift for Jess in his head. 


	3. I'll Be Home For Christmas

Even though Jess said she didn’t need it, she has to admit that letting her friends take over Christmas this year has been wonderful. It really does make her feel better. No matter what happens in the near future, she knows she can face it because she has the best friends in the entire world by her side.

\---

Since Schmidt is in charge of Secret Santa this year, he insists they get all dressed up that night. It was so nice of Cece to go on an impromptu shopping spree with her to pick out this nice new red Christmas dress. Cece and Winston drew each other's names in Secret Santa and their gifts involve a convoluted mix of in-jokes which only they get. Jess gives Schmidt a blazer and a new Christmas scarf she knitted for him with matching mittens. When it’s his turn, Schmidt makes them all go outside for her gift. She doesn’t know how he manages to pull it off but Schmidt was able to get Darlene Love to do a special performance of her favorite Christmas song right outside the loft, complete with a gospel choir. She gets a lump in her throat watching the choir perform. It’s bittersweet because she’s so grateful to all of her friends for working to create The Best Christmas Ever for her this year, but she still can’t help being reminded of that first year when Nick lit up an entire street for her. It still doesn’t feel like Christmas without him here. 

Schmidt must feel it too. His eyes are filled with sympathy for her and he opens his mouth to say something, but then he’s looking across the street with a stunned expression on his face. She turns around to see what Schmidt is staring at and there’s this man bent over with his hands on his knees like he’s trying to catch his breath. It’s impossible, but it almost looks like _Nick._ She thinks she must be dreaming but when she turns back to face her friends, Schmidt is jumping up and down, happy and hugging Cece and Winston, and she knows it’s really him. Nick looks up and his face lights up when he sees her. Their eyes meet and for a brief moment it feels like they are the only two people on the street despite the choir. She presses her hand to her heart. Now she’s the one that’s breathless. Her heartbeat is loud in her ears and she can feel it through her whole body. She takes a few more tentative steps forward and then she can’t help breaking into a run towards him. He holds out his arms and catches her, hugging her tightly to him and engulfing her in the warmth of his familiar arms. 

“Merry Christmas, Jess,” he whispers into her neck. Her happy tears are soaking his coat. He uses his sleeve to wipe her wet face. “Why are you crying, Jess? I thought you would be happy to see me.”

“I am happy. This is my happy face. See?” She gives him a watery smile. “What are you doing here, Nick?”

He places the tiny Jess doll he had been holding in her hands. She had made felt dolls of all of them and snuck them into his suitcase before he left so he would have something to open on Christmas morning and he wouldn’t be lonely without his friends for the holidays. The other dolls are resting snugly in his coat, their heads poking out from his pocket. She can feel herself tearing up again. “I’m sorry, Nick. I didn’t mean to guilt you into coming home. Reagan’s your girlfriend now and you should want to spend Christmas with her.”

“Don't apologize for that, Jess. I had to come home to spend Christmas with my family. Reagan’s great, but I was sitting in my hotel room thinking that I went to Seattle and I made the wrong choice and I was in the wrong place for Christmas. You’re my family, Jess. I wanted to spend Christmas with you.” 

There is only sincerity in his eyes and she can see all the memories of their past Christmases together passing through them, all the things that still tie them together in spite of everything that has happened between them. She can only hug him tightly to her again to express all the feelings inside of her heart that she can't put into words in that moment.

Schmidt runs up beside them. “You made it, Nick!”

Nick chuckles. “You know I like to make an entrance.”

“I didn’t think you were going to make it. The entire Northwest was snowed out. How did you get a flight out?”

“I didn’t…I would have been here sooner, but I fucked up my rental car trying to make it here from Seattle and I had to hitchhike the rest of the way out here.”

Schmidt hugs him tightly. “I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry about it, man. I’m glad you’re here.”

Their little friend circle becomes complete again with Nick there and even though they all just end up getting sloshed on spiked eggnog and falling asleep on the couch together watching _Die Hard_ like they do every year, it’s really all any of them wanted.

\---

Jess is passed out on his shoulder and Nick smiles over at her sleepily. Just a few short hours ago, he had been sitting in his hotel room when he had found her gift tucked in one of the far corners of his suitcase. He had opened it and been struck with a sudden and acute bout of homesickness. He knew Schmidt had still planned to go through with Secret Santa this year, but it wasn't until he was holding Jess's homemade gift in his hands, that he realized how much it actually meant to him for Jess to still think about him, to still include him when he had felt so out of place around his friends after coming back from New Orleans, and she had done it for no reason other than she was Jess and she had an endless supply of selfless love for him. In that instant, he just knew he had to go home to see her, to tell her in person what it meant for her to do that for him. He doesn’t know what they are to each other now, but when their eyes had met out there on the street he thinks they had both felt something. It was a feeling neither of them had allowed themselves to feel in years, but it was striking in its intensity, neither of them able to hide what they felt for each other in that moment. He thinks there aren't a lot of things he needs in this world, but he needs her, and he knows he never wants to spend another Christmas without her. 


	4. Epilogue - Christmas Future

Tomorrow is December 23rd and Nick is helping his daughter Charlie wrap her Secret Santa gift. This year, he and Jess are hosting Secret Santa at their house. He's looking forward to seeing Schmidt and Cece and their two kids. Schmidt and Cece have had a busy year with their cross-country move to New York and the birth of their second kid - a boy named Jacob. They Skype as often as they can, but it will be good to see them in person again. Winston and Aly will drive in from DC, bringing chaos in the form of Furguson's numerous kittens with them, but it'll keep the kids happy at least. Winston and Aly are The Crazy Cat Couple who go around rescuing all the strays and taking vacations with their cats, but it's kind of perfect for them.

Nick measures and cuts a length of ribbon for Charlie's gift. She uses it to tie a neat bow on the package.

“Hey, Dad, how come we celebrate Christmas Eve Eve?” Charlie asks, frowning. “My friend Tommy says that's not a real thing.”

“Of course it’s a real thing, Chuck. It’s your Ma’s favorite holiday.”

“Not Christmas?” she asks in wide-eyed surprise.

He shakes his head. “It’s our own holiday, your mother’s and mine’s and Aunt Cece’s and Uncle Schmidt’s and Uncle Winston’s and Aunt Aly’s too.” He kisses his daughter's forehead. "Don't you let anybody tell you different."

 _Speak of the devil…_ He can see Jess in the doorway dressed in her red Christmas dress holding a plate of her special gingerbread cookies still warm from the oven. He gets up to kiss her under the mistletoe. “Hey, my favorite,” he whispers to her.

“The cookies or the dress?” she asks, laughing.

“Everything,” he replies back, sincerely. _He has everything he needs and he knows there is nowhere else he would rather be._


End file.
